


the empty cups play DnD

by Lancelot_of_the_revolution



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, and a surprising lack of taz jokes considering who i am, i might write more i might not who knows not meee, it's fun, its been a year since ive played dnd and ive never been the dm so ya know, the gang plays DnD, um spoilers for the lost mine of phandelver i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancelot_of_the_revolution/pseuds/Lancelot_of_the_revolution
Summary: Magnus convinces the rest of the group to play a game of DnD with him- it's just 2k words of empty cup bonding and DnD goofs





	the empty cups play DnD

“Okay, are we planning on starting any time soon, or are we just going to sit here and eat Pringles all day?” Sam peered over her dm screen with obvious impatience.

 

“Okay, to be fair, Valhalla Pringles are 100 times better than any other Pringles I’ve tasted,” Alex said, waving a Pringle in the air as she spoke.

 

“People have eaten Pringles while playing tabletops before and they’ll do it again, let’s get started,” Magnus said

 

Magnus, Sam, Alex, and Hearth were seated around a temporary coffee table in Magnus’s living room, character sheets in hand. Magnus had convinced the group to play DnD together “just this once! Just to see if you’ll like it!” and, after Magnus bought the 5e starter set, and dice for everyone, they finally agreed. 

 

Well, almost everyone. 

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to play? We still have plenty of pre-rolled character sheets, you can totally join,”

 

Blitz shook his head, “Not my thing, sorry- besides, I have work to do,”

 

“What are you doing?” Magnus asked

 

“Working on the website for my store, I’ve gotten a few complaints so I’m trying to make it more navigable” He shrugged, “I have no idea about computers, but aesthetics are kind of my job, so I think I can handle it,”

 

Alex started to stand up to check out the computer screen before Sam grabbed her arm to pull her back down, “He just said he can handle it, I’d rather not be playing until two am,” Sam explained while Alex rubbed her wrist.

 

“So if you’re not playing, why are you here?” Magnus asked

 

Blitz shrugged again, this time without looking up from his screen, “Family bonding,”

 

Alex snorted, “Cool, same reason I’m here- does that mean I can go get my laptop, too?”

 

“No! You can’t run a campaign with only two people! Besides, I promise it’s a fun game, I used to play all the time during school lunches,”

 

“You… You played DnD during school lunch? Gods, have I told you that you’re such a fucking dork?”

 

“Probably daily, yeah,” Magnus said with a grin. Alex leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, causing Hearth to sign “Vomit”.

 

“Yeah, I’m with Hearth. Stop being gross and romantic at the table, you two, we’re trying to play a game within this century,”

 

“Alright, alright, I’ll introduce my character,”

 

“Finally!” Blitz said

 

“You’re not even playing! Okay,” Magnus gestured to his character sheet,  “I grabbed one of the pre-rolled characters, so I’m playing the elf wizard,” 

 

“Elf wizard?” Hearth asked, false annoyance evident on his face.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“That’s my job!” 

 

“He’s right, Magnus- you’re really infringing on Hearth’s IP here,” Alex said, setting down her pringles to sign as she spoke.

 

“Oh, come one, I always play elf wizards- they’re cool!” Hearth broke his fake-anger for a second to smirk at that one, “Besides, it gives Hearth a chance to be something in-game that he isn’t already,”

 

“Can we get on with it before hearth starts calling his lawyers?” Sam asked

 

“I can’t afford lawyers,”

 

“Right,” Alex nodded, “I thought we were gonna settle this like men, in a denny’s parking lot at three am,”

 

“If we’re done with this damn game by then, maybe!”

 

Magnus waved the group’s attention back to him, “Right, elf wizard, really smart, bad with people, I know… a lot of languages, I’ll let you know when one comes up, in the interest of saving time. Oh, and my name is Zanaver Dawntracker, but the you can call me Zan,”

 

“Thanks, Zan,” Alex said, “My turn- I’ve got a dragonborn rogue, which is exactly like the halfling rogue character sheet that came in the box, except more fabulous and also  _ a fucking dragon _ so it’s better. My name is… shit,” She glanced around the room, realising she had neglected to write down a name- or do any previous research aside from googling ‘what is a halfling’ and then ‘cool dnd races’

 

“My name is… Lynn… Faethrill”

 

“That’s not a dragonborn name… at all,” Magnus pointed out

 

“Bummer, cause it’s mine,”

 

“You literally just made it up,”

 

“Yeah, and it’s better than yours,  _ Zan _ . At least I’m not a Wonder Twin,” She pumped her fist toward Magnus in imitation of the classic cartoon characters.

 

Sam interrupted them, “So, Hearth, What about you?”

 

“I’m a Human Cleric,” he said, before reaching over to grab a pen and scribble over the words “Hill dwarf” on the character sheet in front of him, and writing a few things down overtop of the information already there, “The healer,” 

 

Sam nodded, “Alright, cool- who’s your god?”

 

Hearth turned to look Magnus in the eye before pointedly saying “Frey,”

 

“Dude!” 

 

“Can you do that? Is he in the game?” Alex asked

 

“I have no idea, but I’ll allow it- and your name?” 

 

“Sorel,”

 

“No surname, I’m into it! Like Cher,” Alex nodded

 

“Or beyonce,” Magnus added

 

“... Or Hearthstone,” Blitz offered

 

“Right, okay, so let's get this started-” Sam cleared her throat,

 

“ _ In the city of Neverwinter, a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker asked you to bring a wagon load of provisions to the rough-and-tumble settlement of Phandalin, a couple of days' travel southeast of the city. Gundren was clearly excited and more than a little secretive about his reasons for the trip, saying only that he and his brothers had found "something big," and that he'd pay you ten gold pieces each for escorting his supplies safely to Barthen's Provisions, a trading post in Phandalin. He then set out ahead of you on horse, along with a warrior escort named Sildar Haliwinter, claiming he needed to arrive early to "take care of business." You've spent the last few days following the High Road south from Neverwinter, and you've just recently veered east along the Triboar Trail. You've encountered no trouble so far, but this territory can be dangerous. Bandits and outlaws have been known to lurk along the trail.” _

 

“A real tapestry of words there, Sis,”

 

“Thanks, I didn’t write it- so, what are you guys doing? Who’s driving?”

 

“Lynn is driving, and they’re damn good at it, just to let you know,”

 

“Zan is in the wagon, chatting with Sorel,”

 

“Does Zan know asl?” Hearth asked

 

“Shit, does Zan know asl?” 

 

“Yeah, yeah, everyone knows asl, we’ll just get that out of the way- so sorel and Zan are chatting, how are they getting along?”

 

Hearth cracked a small smile, “Sorel thinks Zan is a little bitch,”

 

Magnus crossed his arms and tried to look angry, but his laughter more than gave him away.

 

_ You've been on the Triboar Trail for about half a day. As you come around a bend, you spot two dead horses sprawled about fifty feet ahead of you, blocking the path. Each has several black-feathered arrows sticking out of it. The woods press close to the trail here, with a steep embankment and dense thickets on either side. “ _

 

“Can I Investigate the horses from inside the cart?” Magnus asked

 

“You all recognize the horses as belonging to Gundren and Sildar- hey, can I go ahead and change their names now? Cause I just imagined having to say “Sildar Haliwinter” this entire campaign, and I’ve honestly been less upset about facing actual giants in combat,”

 

“Yeah, go ahead,”

 

“So you all recognize the horses as belonging to… Mike and … Jerry, and they’ve been dead about a day,”

 

“Okay, I’m gonna roll an investigation on the horse and I got a… one, cool”

 

“Right, Zan doesn’t see shit. Anyone else wanna try?”

 

“I’ll take a shot,” Alex said, “I’m gonna get out of the cart to get a closer look,”

 

“Great! Roll initiative,”

 

Four goblins were hiding in the woods- two with melee weapons, two with range weapons. The fight with the goblins was mostly uneventful, aside from Lynn getting knocked down to three hp almost immediately. Sorel managed to knock one goblin unconscious, and one goblin fled the scene with the party taking little mind.

 

“So, what do we do about this guy?” Magnus asked, in reference to the goblin.

 

“I want you guys to imagine Lynn kicking the goblin a little, kind of like how shitty little kids kick roadkill, you know? Not hard, kinda grossed out,”

 

Sam stared at alex for a minute, “why?”

 

“I rolled a 13 on kicking him, does that mean anything?”

 

“... Yeah, you kicked him like a champ, really showed him who’s boss. Anybody have ideas that  _ don’t  _ involve kicking the unconscious goblin?

 

“Tie him up?” Hearth suggested

 

“Good idea,” Magnus nodded, “Do we have rope?”

 

“Oh, so Hearth can hogtie the bastard without questions, but I can’t give him a little shoulder nudge?”

 

“You can look in the cart for rope if you want, yeah,”

 

“I know I have some rope, but y’all can’t have it,” Alex wrinkled her nose at the others

 

Hearth shrugged, “I also have rope,” 

 

“What the hell does Hearth need rope for?!” Alex threw up her hands, “He’s a cleric!”

 

“It’s for hogtying goblins, obviously,” Blitz piped up

 

“Is that a skill check?” 

 

“Dexterity, probably, tying up deadweight like that is hard- you can work together to get advantage, if you want,”

 

“I’ll help hearth out,” Magnus offered

 

“I most certainly will not, not until Sorel gives me a good excuse for carrying around 50 feet of rope wherever he goes,”

 

“Cleric stuff,” Hearth shrugged, before turning to Sam and signing “21”

 

“Great, that goblin is super tied up- Also, he’s starting to wake up now, so do with that information what you will,”

 

“I have a sword!” Alex announced, scanning her character sheet for some stat she’d forgotten

 

“Congratulations?”

 

“Blitz, if you don’t shut up I’m making you join the game-” Blitz made a funny face at Sam, but she didn’t notice, “what are you trying to do with the sword?”

 

“I’m gonna hold my shortsword up to the goblins throat- that’s intimidation, right?”

 

“Uh, yeah- what’d you get?”

 

“16? Is he scared of me?”

 

“Yeah he’s scared- he looks down at the sword, then at you, and back and forth a couple times, then he just starts bawling,” 

 

“Fucking sweet!” Alex shouts, causing Blitz to look at her with mild suspicion.

 

“He says, uh, ‘P-please don’t kill me, I’ll tell you anything you want- I’ll tell you who sent us, how to get through the woods safely, I’ll give you all the gossip you could ask for-’”

 

“Zan is gonna step up, and ask who sent them,”

 

“Lynn is gonna cut him off, ‘tell me about that goblin gossip, I’m dying to know,’”

 

Sam looked up from the papers in front of her, “Really? Like, for real?”

 

“Yeah, Sam, you offered up the goblin gossip, so now you have to live with that. Spill that goblin tea,”

 

“I don’t  _ have  _ any goblin tea!”

 

“That feels like your problem,”

 

Sam inhaled deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose, “The goblin looks confused, but he starts talking,” She pauses to think for a minute, “‘so you know Gruzzug? Lives in the next forest over, went to highschool with the Grobal boys?’”

 

“‘Course I do,”

 

“Do you really?” Sam asked

 

“Gods no, but he’s not going to question me,”

 

“Why are you doing this to me? So he says, ‘right, well he got married a year back, you know? Just had a kid, cutest little boy, and then, no reason given, he just vanishes! Dissappears of the face of the planet!’”

 

“No! Really?”

 

“That’s not even the good part! The good part is that just last week, my cousin saw him over in neverwinter with three-’”

 

“Zan interrupts, ‘where are the people that owned these horses?”

 

Alex glared at Magnus, very obviously annoyed, and grumbled something he couldn’t quite catch.

 

The group finds out that the Mike and Jerry were kidnapped on the order of their leader, a bugbear named Klarg, who in turn was taking orders from someone called the black spider, which Blitz announced was the dumbest name he’d ever heard.

 

“Well I guess that means we ought to go find Mike and Jerry, huh?” Magnus asks

 

“I mean, we don’t  _ have to,  _ we could always just hang out with our new goblin friend,”

 

“Is this in or out of character, you guys?” Sam asked, only to be met with an empathetic “Yes” from both parties.

 

“Or both,” Hearth suggests, “Take the goblin with us?”

 

“Take the what where now?” sam, as the goblin, askes on the assumption that what Hearth said was also in character.

 

“‘Yeah! Come on little buddy! You’re gonna teach us how to get through these woods,’ Lynn is gonna scoop up the goblin and wear him like a purse,”

 

“Oh, the goblin would really prefer you didn’t do that, I think,”

 

“I think the goblin should have thought about that before he ambushed us!”


End file.
